July 8, 2004

Have Mercy

Yesterday, after setting fire to my yarn (which was not, I repeat, NOT the super-cool sock yarn, sorry if I upset anyone anymore than was necessary) I comforted myself by finishing the first of the Laurie-socks. As expected, this bucked me up a fair bit, and hope and happiness were restored.

My happiness was short lived as mere moments later, while attempting to put the sock on to perform a very encouraging "dancing with one sock on victory thing" I discovered that I had cast off too tightly and the sock wouldn't go on.

Since I am (apparently) a knitter of fortitude and resiliance, I did not proceed to sob, set fire to the sock, get some scotch or mutter foul language (good eh?) instead I sat down and invented a very, very stretchy cool sewn cast off.
This made me feel a lot better. I love being brilliant, and brilliant and innovative is even better. I put on the sock and did my victory dance, snapping photos for posterity.

Not even the fact that my ankle seems inexplicabley chunky in this picture can spoil the mood. I decided to write out my instructions for doing the incredibly clever sewn cast off, when it all started to sound a little familiar. I did a quick look about, and lo and behold, I am ripping off Elizabeth Zimmermann. I have invented nothing, merely somehow sucked page 23 into my brain and briefly believed that I was clever. I am not. Hopefully acknowledging this publicly will stave off any punishment that the universe may exact upon me for thinking however briefly that I had come up with something original and coming perilously close to plagiarism. I assure whoever is watching me that I was only a little proud of the cast off, and that I guessed immediately that I was not clever and I didn't tell anyone that I was smart or that the sock cast off was my genius.
Please spare the sock.

Thanks to everyone who was glad that it was the yarn and not my hair in the fire, (I tell you, I'm still recovering from the moment that I thought it was both) but let's get our priorities straight. As Amie said in the comments yesterday "Hair grows back, Spinning is forever".

A special aside to the individual who stole Amanda's bike yesterday....
Seriously dude, from in front of a school? I hope your yarn is on fire.